


clouds (over my head and sifting through my fingers)

by assortedwords



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Underage Smoking, life-hating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assortedwords/pseuds/assortedwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Can I have one?”</p>
<p>“Never thought you’d be one to damage your lungs, Fushimi-kun,” but Munakata drops one hand into the wide pocket of the dumb as hell uniform that looks like something out of a child’s video game and flicks open the plastic-wrapped paper that is the cigarette packet, extending it to Saruhiko.</p>
<p>Saruhiko takes the cigarette solely for the fact it’s a chance for Munakata’s distraction from his hangover and a prolonging of his inevitable self-destruction all in one.  As far as those go, this is a pretty good bargain.</p>
<p>sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1724318">this</a> because both can be stand-alones and they're not really on the same wavelength besides Fushimi mulling over the ways his life sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clouds (over my head and sifting through my fingers)

His life, Saruhiko thinks again for the umpteenth time, is undoubtedly worthy of a nomination for some sort of hopelessness award.

Just to test himself (if he hurts, although he won’t, because everything inside him has already rotted down to a black hole that destroys all emotion—but if he’s not being poetic, he’s just fucking _numb_ ) he counts down the reasons on why he’d be applicable: his best friend left him for a gang of ragtag delinquents with enough eighth-grade syndrome for a shounen anime and has the biggest stick up his ass about _Saruhiko_ “betraying” him, of all things, he wakes up every morning trying to make sense of why the bunk under him is empty, his colleagues think he’s a walking angst fest and probably a suck-up for the Captain, his boss is the only person he’s remotely friendly with (he’s really just throwing this in for the hell of it, he doesn’t care at all), his dad’s a piece of shit who undermines everything he does, and the most recent and oddly applicable reason as of late—he’s got a massive fucking hangover from lamenting this exact same subject until he passed out this morning at 4AM yet he’s _still_ at work because he can’t fucking stand the emptiness of his apartment, how every sound echoes around the walls and reflects the _nothingness_ in it. Oh, and here’s the clincher—he’s fucking _nineteen_ years old.

And that’s just the summary, too. He’s so getting that prize. He’ll probably bowl everyone over by just starting with how the best friend he ever had ditched him for a sleep-obsessed lazy piece of ass who does nothing but set shit on fire and scare little kids.

Saruhiko pushes his chair away from the table to stand up, because his tongue feels like it could suffocate him and while death would not be an altogether bad decision he’s fairly sure he would not like to go out choking on the lack of his own saliva in the middle of the Scepter4 library. Plus, his headache throbs to every syllable of a report he reads—paired with the pure fucking _stupidity_ of Domyouji’s reports, he _really_ thinks he can’t take it anymore. If this continues, his unexplainable urge to slam his head against the desk in front of him will grow increasingly instantiable—as it is now, so Saruhiko shoves the chair back into the depths of the table and goes outside, if only for a breath of fresh air—and the lights really are just _much_ too bright.

Saruhiko knows it’s really only pure coincidence that he runs into his Captain smoking when he finally bursts through the doors of Scepter4, only it doesn’t fucking help at all. Now he’s dizzy as well, nauseous and uneasy, the entire fucking world’s spinning and he still has piles of reports to approve and correct back in the library and _shit_ the sun just came out he fucking hates the world, why did he come to work—

“Are you alright, Fushimi-kun?”

Saruhiko contemplates, in a moment of utter wild sardonic insanity, to let everything out: _I’m nineteen years old and I hate my life, I have no friends and family and I still haven’t gotten over the taste of vegetables ever since I was a little kid but that’s kind of beside the point because right now my major problem is the headache that feels like it’s crushing itself against my skull multiple times as I’m being taken on a merry-go-round of dehydration and oh did I mention it’s because I got completely fucking pissed last night by myself in my apartment_ , just to see a reaction to make him feel something for once, but Munakata would probably brush that one off with that smile of his too. Bastard.

“I’m fine,” he says instead, schooling his face into that expression that is his armour—mouth curving downwards in an arc, eyes unreadable.  The only thing betraying him, he thinks, is the unnatural stillness of his head in an attempt to stop the world spinning, but whatever. It’s not like he usually flings his head around anyway.

Munakata’s still looking at him with that half-smile and Saruhiko hates the way his eyes pierce into him and drag out everything he’s unwilling to talk about so he takes one, two steps closer and points to the cigarette.

“Can I have one?”

“Never thought you’d be one to damage your lungs, Fushimi-kun,” but Munakata drops one hand into the wide pocket of the dumb as hell uniform that looks like something out of a child’s video game and flicks open the plastic-wrapped paper that is the cigarette packet, extending it to Saruhiko.

Saruhiko takes the cigarette solely for the fact it’s a chance for Munakata’s distraction from his hangover and a prolonging of his inevitable self-destruction all in one.  As far as those go, this is a pretty good bargain.

The cigarette tastes like—well, Saruhiko thinks he would have had a better chance of tasting it if he wasn’t too busy coughing his lungs out. His throat feels even drier than before, coated with the sand texture of cigarette ash, and every cough stings like he’s been _rubbing_ his throat with sandpaper.

Somewhere in the middle of this Munakata reaches over and thumps his subordinate on the back calmly, and Saruhiko resents him just a little; _what_ makes this man react other than total and utter composed cool?

Saruhiko wants to be like him.

But on the other hand, he wonders what it would be like to watch your emotions linger in the air, wear the trails of your tears on your face like a badge of honour, wear your heart on your sleeve instead of tucking it into the core of your palm and closing your fist over it. He wonders what it would be like to be like Misaki, whose emotions are as obvious as the red-hot fire that glows around him.

“Why do you even _enjoy_ those,” Saruhiko says, the question turning into a statement without the lift of the last syllable.

Munakata just smiles, and takes another drag on his own cigarette.

“I’m going back inside,” he informs his superior, his conditions even _worse_ since now his lungs, head and throat are all simultaneously trying to kill him. Self-destruction is a lot less pretty when it’s not words on a poem, Saruhiko thinks dryly.

“Of course.” Munakata watches him with the air of a scientist watching an experiment. “Oh, and Fushimi-kun?”

“…Yes, sir?”

“Dispose of this.” Munakata picks up the paper stick with all the taste of what you’d imagine an ashtray would and hands it to Saruhiko.

“Of course.”

“And might I suggest you not smoke the next time you have a hangover? I wouldn’t imagine it’s a pleasant experience.”

Saruhiko stiffens.

“…Yes, sir.” His voice is audibly lower, seething at being bested once again by Munakata Reisi.

Damn him.

(He admires him.)

**Author's Note:**

> okay no but I have a lot of feelings about Fushimi not eating vegetables because he tries to act so grown-up and angsty but he's really just a goddamn showoff who has all the maturity of an elementary school student getting back at someone for putting their elbow over their side of the table and doesn't eat his fucking vegetables. What a loser.
> 
> as always, thank you for reading you all are great. leave a kudos if you liked it, means a lot!


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